I was having lunch at my mother's place recently and she was playing a most pleasant ginan tape(as she usually does) and my brothers and I revelled in the melodious singing coupled with tunes that put us into a pleasant post-lunch meditative stupor. It must have been this frame of mind that caused me to post such a voluminous comment on the Ismaili Mail website in response to what I thought was an excellent 'you tube' video introduction to what looked like the beginning of a ginanfest at Canada's Darkhana Jamat Khana(Burnaby, Vancouver).
The creator and presenter of this video clip(Aleem Karmali) caught my serious attention because he talked about the beneficial effects that music of every culture can have on societies as well as individuals. Ginans as a musical tradition, but one with a difference in that it prosletyses the thoughts and guidance of some of the most divinely-inspired individuals the world has ever produced, are very much a part of the world-wide musical tradition. I spoke also of the tradition of western music and rhythms that have both in the past and now had such a great influence on my life but I forgot to mention a few in my comment(see below): who can forget the Motown sound of the great Marvin Gaye, Smoky Robinson, Stevie Wonder, the Temptations or the Four Tops, among many others; or the gyrating disco beats and songs of Donna Summer, Barry White, Gloria Gaynor, Earth, Wind and Fire, again among many others. In the instrumental section, in addition to the fusion of the Latin American and Persian guitar rhythms of Costa Rican George Strunz and Iranian Ardeshir Farah, we have Jesse Cook, Ottmar Liebert and our very own Torontonian Robert Michaels , again among many others. This was the posting and comment on Ismaili Mail:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2007/04/20/history-of-ginans/#comment-5379
Our Imams have referred to ginans as a "wonderful tradition" and I certainly hold in reverence anyone who is knowledgeable on this subject and takes the time to share their knowledge with the rest of us.
easynash
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation:Aga Khan 4.
The God of the Quran is the One whose Ayats(Signs) are the Universe in which we live, move and have our being:Aga Khan 3
